User blog:John Pan/L-31
The IPC needed a heavy close air support aircraft to act a part of its rapid defense policy: as Paratroopers are mobilized to target locations, the Air Force has to deliver them and delay the enemy enough to let them delay the enemy to let the Army smother them. Confused? In short, it means that enemy tanks need to get blown up. An aircraft like the previous-generation A-10II or the newly developed A-27 Tornado were both ideal for the job. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries turned out a similar aircraft. In 2033 the IPC operated 220 of them. 1 AIRCRAFT Main Armament The L-31 is built around the massive Advanced Ordinance Singapore 40mm four-barreled Gatling gun. Four Chwei-Is or Compass ARMs can be carried in its weapons bay. The L-31 uses a SABR AESA as well as multipoint IR and LADAR senor array to find and attack targets on the ground. AOS 40mm Gatling The AOS 40 is the Asian take on the GAU-8/A Avenger 30mm Gatling. They ramped up the ammunition caliber to 40mm, in order to increase explosive firepower an armor penetration, and decreased the cannon's barrel length, while the cannon is still capable of dishing out a tremendous amount of fire: 3,000 RPM is the standard fire rate, while it can be tuned up to 4,200 at max. On the L-31, however, it is tuned down to 1,200 RPM to keep the aircraft from disintegrating mid-flight. It draws from a 680-round drum set behind the gun. Chwei-I Chwei-I guided bombs are the Asian take on the Maverick. It packs an IR seeker to home in on targets, an ECCM suite to counter flares, four proximity-launch Triple-HEAT ATGMs as well as 50lb of High Explosives to give infantry a good kick-in-the-pants. It's delivered by a rocket motor that provides it with transonic flight for a maximum of 50km. Compass AARM Compass AARMs are the Asian take on the AGM-88 HARM. The Compass has the same basic hardware as the AGM-88E- a radiation seeker, an Active Millimeter Seeker, similar fin guidance group, and a hefty warhead. But it goes two steps further: adding in an ECCM suite to counter softkill ECMs, and a rocket-boosted Ramjet motor to provide it with a much higher attack speed of Mach 6 or more. Range is about 100km from 15,000 ft. Upgrades A) Shriken AAM The Shirken AAM was developed out of an air-launched anti-missile missile to protect aircraft against the increasingly intelligent AAMs possessed by the IOR and the NAU. Although it uses a small 5-inch/127-millimeter tube, it is able to pack an IR Seeker, an ECCM suite, a 20-lb warhead, guidance fin groups and a vector-thruster-equipped rocket motor that can propel it to a maximum of eight kilometers. This makes it lethal against enemy missiles. The L-31 can carry ten of these missiles in two separate launch pods on the sides of the aircraft's engines. Armor The L-31 has a Aluminum-Kevlar plating protected airframe that makes it able to survive 35mm AP autocannon fire. A Titanium bathtub protects the pilot, for a maximum stacking defense capability of 40mm AP protection. The L-31 also has a full multiband radar jammer, multi-point IR detectors, wavelength analyzers as well as DRFM jammers and IR dazzlers to survive being shot at by more lethal instruments of war. The L-31 has the RCS of 0.01 m3 under perfect circumstances. Propulsion The L-31 uses the same engines as the ZD-25, which is equipped with two TA-1875-TF low-bypass turbofans. It produces 70,000lb of thrust at full afterburner, enough to allow the 80,000lb close air support aircraft to supercruise at Mach 1.1, while it normally opens up at targets at Mach 0.7. Additionally, thanks to its massive internal fuel stowage capacity, the L-31 has a huge 3,000-kilometer combat radius. Category:Blog posts